YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, September 23. /ITAR-TASS/. Asia-Pacific regional states’ aggregate annual gas import will almost double from 270 billion cubic meters in 2013 to 530 billion cubic meters in 15 years, Russian energy giant Gazprom’s Board Deputy Chairman Alexander Medvedev said at an annual conference over oil and gas industry on Russia’s far eastern island Sakhalin.

Medvedev did not name the share of imported gas in the Asia-Pacific region which Gazprom directly delivers or plans to supply. He noted that Asia-Pacific regional states met domestic gas demand at 40%

Medvedev added that gas purchases in Asia had recently denied to link gas prices to oil.

In his speech the Gazprom high-ranking official also commented on Western sanctions imposed on Russia. He noted that they would not be successful and compared EU sanctions with the conduct by an officer’s widow who pranked herself up in great Russian writer Gogol’s comedy “Government Inspector”.